Chance for reach schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey everyone! I am currently a junior, but I am planning to apply for Columbia ED next fall, and I would really appreciate it if you guys could help me with things I need to improve on for the next year. If I do not get into Columbia on ED, then my other reach school is UPenn.</p>

<p>My mid-ranged schools are Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Boston College</p>

<p>For my safety schools, I selected two of my state schools that I prefer not to disclose.</p>

<p>-Female
-First generation Chinese
-I attend an extremely rigorous high school that is quite well known to universities for its academic standard. On an average year, we have people up to the 15th rank getting accepted into at least one, usually two Ivy or comparable schools.
-GPA weighted/unweighted: 4.0 (my school doesn't weight GPA, only numeric average. I calculated my unweighted GPA from my unweighted numeric average as well)
-SAT: 2240 CR: 700, Math: 780, Writing: 760 (This was from my first time taking the SAT. I know my CR score isn't great, which was surprising because CR is usually my strongest or second strongest. I plan on taking the SAT again in January and hope to superscore to a 2300 or above)
-SAT II: Chinese: 800, World History: 800 (I plan on taking Physics, Math 2, and US History)
-English is my second language</p>

<p>Classes taken:</p>

<p>Freshmen
-Spanish 2 honors
-Accelerated math 1 honors
-9th grade literature honors
-Orchestra
-Health/American Gov (this was required at my school and there were no AP/honors options)
-Biology honors</p>

<p>Sophomore:
-Spanish 3 honors
-AP World History
-Chemistry honors
-Orchestra
-10th grade lit honors
-Accelerated math 2 honors</p>

<p>Summer:
Precal honors</p>

<p>Junior:
-AP lang
-AP calc AB (will taking this negatively affect me? I regret not taking BC because I am easily having a 100 unweighted in this class, and my school has a 93% pass rate and a 80% 5 rate on the exam, so the class isn't a lot easier than it is supposed to be)
-AP physics b
-AP US history
-Spanish 4 honors
-Orchestra</p>

<p>Senior (tentative):
-AP econ macro/micro
-Orchestra
-AP biology (or perhaps AP chemistry)
-AP lit
-AP Calc BC
-AP Spanish</p>

<p>Extra-curricular:
-Debate team 9-12 (Captain in 11 and most likely captain in 12)
-Founder/President of a school club for homeless awareness 11-12
-I prefer not to give the name of this club, because it is localized, but basically it is a community outreach/school increase club 9-12 (secretary in 10, president in 11-12)
-Orchestra historian
-National Spanish Honor Society 10-11
-Church worship team 11-12
-Church youth leadership group 11-12
-School tutoring program 11-12
-Summer art camp counselor 10-12
-400+ hours of community service
-Mission trips during my spring break/summer vacation 10-12<br>
-Other various volunteer activities, about 10-20 hours a month
-Super honor roll 9-12
-Will probably graduate summa cum laude</p>

<p>I also grew up with my parents hardly around because they were working crazy hours trying to make end's meet. Will that help me in any way?</p>

2

<p>why are you taking calculus BC your senior year? Calculus BC is the very similar to AB except they add a few more topics. About 3/4 of your year will be a review. If you can take a class with your cc for calc II/multi-variable if your school has it, otherwise take AP Stat or something.</p>

<p>Have you looked up your schools ranking? Sending 15 to ivies is definitely something moreso than other public high schools so your high school probably has a good profile.</p>

<p>Your test scores are good for ivies, you have the gpa, only thing is your ecs, while showing that you certainly are involved, do not show the “academic passions” that ivies look for and focus. Also do you have any other significant awards?</p>

<p>I’d say you have a decent list for your schools and will be a competitive candidate at all of them</p>

3

<p>Duke is a definite reach too with a 700 CR. Vandy and Emory are in-between reach and match, they get more competitive every year.</p>

<p>Really work on bringing up the CR, that will be key for making you competitive at T20 schools. And look at your ECs to see how you can bring them beyond school level. If Chinese is your first language, don’t use it as an SAT II.</p>

<p>That your parent work a lot won’t “help.” what May help is giving colleges a feel for your background which may have included more responsibilities than many high schoolers have.</p>

4

<p>@samir634:
My school doesn’t have calc II, but there is an option to take college calc at a university, but I think only BC students qualify. I am a bit reluctant to take take AP stat because it just doesn’t seem as rigorous of a math course as calc. Would it hurt me more to take calc or stat?</p>

<p>I checked my school ranking, and I couldn’t find it, but I do know that we are ranked number one in my state for public schools and number two for public and private schools. I did manage to find the ranking of a nearby school that has always been a close second to us in ranking and it was ranked in the 110’s nationally, so I am guessing we are somewhere around there?</p>

<p>For awards, I have won several debate awards like semi-finalist, finalist, quarter-finalist, champ, and co-champ. I would say that debate team is my biggest academic extra-curricular because I do cx debate, which is known nationally to be extremely rigorous and time consuming. Every year, the average debater can overflow a bathtub with just research alone. And I’m pretty sure Columbia knows this because their debate team is one of the best on the national circuit. </p>

<p>Aside from that, because I’m taking 11 AP classes, I’ll graduate with an AP scholar award, I did win second place at the national Jr. Beta convention in 8th grade, but I doubt that really counts, and I have gotten Super Honor Roll for every grading period.</p>

<p>Thank you for your input!</p>

5

<p>@Waverly:
The reason I don’t think Duke is that much of a reach school is because it really loves my high school. Every year, we have 15+ students going there.</p>

<p>As for my CR score, I am confident that I can get it to at least a 750 because in my past 4-5 practice test, I have managed to score a 780…I really don’t know what happened to the real test. Would scoring a 750 drastically improve my chances?</p>

<p>Thank you for your time!</p>

6

<p>Do you by any chance know your exact class rank? In terms of academics, they’re okay. SAT re-take is recommended since you have only taken it once. While I wouldn’t say a 750 will drastically improve your chances, it will make you a slightly more competitive applicant to these schools. Coming from such a good school will obviously help making those “Mid-Range” schools within grasp (you must live pretty close to Duke). ECs are somewhat generic if you’re going to be looking at competitive schools such as Columbia and Penn. Given this, I see schools such as Columbia and Penn RD as reaches.</p>

7

<p>Juliee, in my experience, when your school is a feeder, they still want scores well in range. A 700CR is not.</p>

8

<p>Provided that you write great essays (interesting, personal, genuine–they will know), you should make a pretty strong candidate even for your “reach” schools. I don’t agree, as some people have said above, that a 700 in CR is “not in range”, since for most Ivies their 25%-75% range are about 700-800. However, it is on the low end, and it would be advisable to retake the SAT and get a higher score.</p>

<p>All in all, I think you have a decent chance if you make use of the year ahead to boost your competitiveness even further.</p>

9

<p>@dblazer My school doesn’t give official class ranks until senior year, but my counselor estimated me to be in the top 5% which translates to somewhere in the top 25. The thing with my school’s ranking system is that everyone in the top 15’s cumulative average (which is what we go by) differs from 0.5 of a point from val to rank 15 and a lot of vals and sals transferring from other schools end up failing two or three of their classes. Colleges will keep school profile in mind while evaluating rankings right?</p>

<p>@Waverly I just checked Duke’s range for their freshmen class, and the middle 50% scores were from 660-750, so I am right in the middle. Still, the 700 CR score isn’t great to make me competitive for that school, and I am definitely taking the SAT again. I have a feeling the score is a fluke though because when I practiced on released tests, I generally scored around a 770-780 and I the PSAT CR score I just got back (which I took two/three weeks before my SAT) was an 80, missing zero.</p>

<p>@shootastar Yes! I am definitely taking the SAT again. I just signed up for the January test last week. Thank you very much for your input.</p>

10

<p>I’ve worked at feeder schools to the ivies and Duke for many years. Colleges are not looking for kids from feeder schools to be in the middle of their 50th percent range. Consider that half of the class is comprised of kids for whom they will accept lower stats: recruited athletes, URMs, legacies, staff children, donor children, movie stars and senator’s kids, the otherwise very connected. Then the tipped- low income, from underrepresented states and countries, extraordinary talent…</p>

<p>That leaves the rest of the class to pull up the numbers.</p>

<p>I don’t see unhooked kids from feeder schools getting into Duke with a 700CR.</p>